The lightest touch

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:35 pm

Here is a question.

What is the minimum amount of pressure one needs to inflict pain/damage with an empty hand?

Also how and why is it possible?
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Wanderingdragon on Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:04 pm

I would guess look at the eyes on this one, but accuracy and speed are essential.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:06 pm

Hmmm,

I was thinking more in terms of "cotton fist/palm" strikes.

I'm wondering what is the least amount of pressure one would need in order to transfer power from my body to the opponent. With a "push" one can be ridiculously light and send someone a fair distance at a fair speed. So how light could we make a shock wave or heavy force enter the opponents body? So that it causes injury inside? I don't nescessarily mean exploding any organs or such like; just interested in the minimum amount of pressure to transfer this kind of force.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Wanderingdragon on Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:19 pm

No soft touch is about least amount of pressure or force, it is about least amount of effort creating the force.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:45 pm

WD,

Not really speaking about "soft touch", or soft amount of force. Think of it this way.....

A water cannon has a hell of a lot of force transmitted through the water, but the hose itself could touch your skin with little pressure. If we consider the fist/palm and arm like the hose and the internal force the water, the question is, how much pressure does the hand have to excert on the suffice of the skin in order to successfully transmit the internal force?

Or do we believe that the weapon (fist/palm whatever) has to be 1) traveling fast enough to carry force and 2) has to "bury" itself into the target (excerting) a lot of pressure?

The question is really one of conductivity. How much contact pressure does it take to conduct internal force?
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby TrainingDummy on Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:51 am

Walk the Torque wrote:The question is really one of conductivity. How much contact pressure does it take to conduct internal force?


~Waves hand wildly~

"Miss! Miss! Pick me!"

"Is it... four ounces???"
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Wanderingdragon on Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:30 am

I get it, how to turn on or off the hose? High level stuff, I have had occasion when I believed I had o Lu touched my partner and he went writhing in pain, sommuch so that I thought he was giving me shit. I apologized profusely, still dazed and confused myself, days later when he showed me the bruise I was still confused. Had my strike been so relaxed and perfectly aligned that I was unaware of the force that I touched him with? Or did I find that elusive chi ball I had built and stored in the coil that I sent coming down the shoot? I don't know, I just know that now when I play,I only strike by my core without extending through the last connections. I continue to practice that extension in my solo play, I know that I have missed a connection when I feel an extension in a singular joint.
Last edited by Wanderingdragon on Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:23 am

TrainingDummy wrote:
Walk the Torque wrote:The question is really one of conductivity. How much contact pressure does it take to conduct internal force?


~Waves hand wildly~

"Miss! Miss! Pick me!"

"Is it... four ounces???"


Ha!

I was hoping for something a little less heavy handed but I can live with that! ;D
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Chris McKinley on Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:18 am

Conn,

What is the minimum amount of pressure one needs to inflict pain/damage with an empty hand?


Exactly how are you measuring that pain or that damage? Without a fairly precise answer to that question, it is impossible to answer you in any meaningful way.

With a "push" one can be ridiculously light and send someone a fair distance at a fair speed.


This is simply factually untrue unless the person receiving the force is grossly unbalanced to begin with. Whatever the measure, it's important to note that in terms of the actual physics, the body doesn't know what is hitting it. The firehose analogy is not really optimal here since it's only applicable to a limited point. Momentum can be transferred through a stationary object (such as your hand) such that it appears that there is no movement. This applies to an extent and yet in situations in which a great deal of momentum force is transferred, the contact surface still produces a degree of force in exactly the same strength as the momentum minus that energy which is dispersed through entropy or is absorbed by the transmitting object. IOW, even though it appears not to move, it still hits really damn hard. There is physically no such thing as a situation in which a) the transmitting object appears not to move, b) the contact surface transmits only a small or negligible force, and c) someone moves a fair distance at a fair rate of speed as a result. That is physically impossible and never occurs under any circumstances save for that the person being pushed were balancing their whole body on the head of an upright pin.

Now, it may feel like you're not hitting very hard if you've got the pearls lined up correctly, so to speak, but you still are if you're moving the person any significant amount and they aren't already completely unbalanced.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby nianfong on Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:56 pm

how much force does it take to stick a finger into someone's eye?
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:13 am

Chris McKinley wrote:Conn,

What is the minimum amount of pressure one needs to inflict pain/damage with an empty hand?


Exactly how are you measuring that pain or that damage? Without a fairly precise answer to that question, it is impossible to answer you in any meaningful way.


Well that of course is a tricky one, I mean pain is pretty subjective unless your an experienced nurse. I was thinking along the lines of a strike that produces an involuntary and audible groan like "ORRR" or "URGHHH"

With a "push" one can be ridiculously light and send someone a fair distance at a fair speed.


This is simply factually untrue unless the person receiving the force is grossly unbalanced to begin with. Whatever the measure, it's important to note that in terms of the actual physics, the body doesn't know what is hitting it. The firehose analogy is not really optimal here since it's only applicable to a limited point. Momentum can be transferred through a stationary object (such as your hand) such that it appears that there is no movement. This applies to an extent and yet in situations in which a great deal of momentum force is transferred, the contact surface still produces a degree of force in exactly the same strength as the momentum minus that energy which is dispersed through entropy or is absorbed by the transmitting object. IOW, even though it appears not to move, it still hits really damn hard. There is physically no such thing as a situation in which a) the transmitting object appears not to move, b) the contact surface transmits only a small or negligible force, and c) someone moves a fair distance at a fair rate of speed as a result. That is physically impossible and never occurs under any circumstances save for that the person being pushed were balancing their whole body on the head of an upright pin.[/quote]

Chris, although I would definitely agree that a person being off balance would most definitely help. It is not a deciding factor for this type of "push". The side effect of an inability to rotate/neutralize under pressure is however. It is really the stopping and lack of movement that would enable someone to perform a light pressured push. If a person is off balance and falling in a particular direction then it is necessary only to stick, adhere and follow in that direction them using an excellaration born of the maintaining the correct amount of pressure as they move away.

The same situation can happen when a person is fully balanced yet has become lifted off the ground. You lift them up, they begin to move away from you extend your joints while maintaining contact. The result is a placement of them by you to an out of range distance.

The fire hose analogy of course as you say is useful only to a point, however the point/concept I was attempting to convey was one of separating the force from the object of delivery. Even though I realize that water itself is also a substance, the differentiation of the carrier of the force and the force itself was my aim. I apologize if it came across as something else.

I also was not really speaking of the object of delivery as being stationary, just that it is making light contact with the target surface. Certainly the length of time the punch and the punched is in contact will influence the quality of force transmitted. If a very short time is executed then the shocking type force should have a strong and penetrative effect;but the question still remains (probably only in my mind ;D ) how much or how little pressure is required to create enough of a connection for there to be an efficient transmission of force.




Chris McKinley wrote:
Now, it may feel like you're not hitting very hard if you've got the pearls lined up correctly, so to speak, but you still are if you're moving the person any significant amount and they aren't already completely unbalanced.


I once had a tap to the chest that did not move me back at all really, but did cause me to feel that my left lung was compromised. It bloody hurt too.

I have been playing with the angle of strikes and working on the optimal angle to have the strike penetrate. I have found the that 90 degrees Or perpendicular to the target just doesn't get the results that angled striking does. I am looking now to combine this with the "correct" amount of contact pressure for optimal force transference.


Fong,

To true. I spent close to a week in bed with a scratched Cornia (moving the good eye caused so much pain in the bad eye) that left me blind as a result. Didn't take much pressure, effort or skill on behalf of my spar.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Chris McKinley on Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:50 am

Conn,

Chris, although I would definitely agree that a person being off balance would most definitely help. It is not a deciding factor for this type of "push". The side effect of an inability to rotate/neutralize under pressure is however. It is really the stopping and lack of movement that would enable someone to perform a light pressured push.


Hmm...I guess I'm not sure what exactly you mean by a "light" push then. Let me put it this way, if I stood flat-footed, feet even, and resisted so as to have no spinal rotation at all, and did not move so as to neutralize any of your incoming force, you would not be able to move me even a single foot distance back even pushing on one of my shoulders without applying at least 20-30 lbs. of pressure at the bare minimum, no matter how you generated that force. That isn't what I would call a light push for the purposes of this conversation.

The same situation can happen when a person is fully balanced yet has become lifted off the ground. You lift them up, they begin to move away from you extend your joints while maintaining contact. The result is a placement of them by you to an out of range distance.


It's not really clear what you mean in this example. On its face, it would appear very easily and simply wrong, in that I could jump straight up into the air and you would still have to exert a fairly noticeable force in order to move me out of range of being able to strike you. Perhaps you might clarify what you mean here so that I could at least give it a fair reading.

The fire hose analogy of course as you say is useful only to a point, however the point/concept I was attempting to convey was one of separating the force from the object of delivery.


Yes, I know. And that's why I explained that you really cannot do that in terms of the sheer physics of it since what is being transmitted is the force, in this case momentum, and that force is either sufficient for the task or it is not. Physics does not care by which item that force is transmitted. Either sufficient momentum is transmitted through your hand or it is not. If it is, then the force being transmitted is still significant.

Let me state again in a slightly different way for clarity: In real physics terms, there is no such thing as moving a significantly large, balanced object "a fair distance at a fair speed" without applying an appropriately significant force. It is irrelevant which structure applies the force. It is irrelevant how that force was initially generated. The contact point/object of transmission could be a human hand or a bulldozer blade and the exact same physics would still apply. The force necessary to be applied to the significantly large, balanced object in order to move it "a fair distance at a fair speed" is identical regardless. Let's call that sufficient level of force X. As a human being attempting to be the object of both the generation and the transmission of that force, it is still your task to produce X amount of force, regardless of how you generate it, and regardless of which part of your anatomy is the object of transmission for that force.

It is also irrelevant over which period of time that force is transmitted. The total force, delivered over any period of time from a microsecond to 100 years, must reach a sufficient number of lbs., in this case we have called it X, in order to overcome the friction and inertia of the object being moved or it will not move. No exceptions.
Last edited by Chris McKinley on Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:17 am

Chris,

So we have light push and light striking in question. the former where your body is (potentially) moving at a fair rate to a fair distance and the latter where upon receiving the strike your body does not necessarily move backwards any significant distance but you do experience pain.

In the scenario painted above whereby you are stationary to begin with the technique I use has two phases and goes something like this......

Phase 1) I place my hands on your body at a certain pressure and raise my elbows slightly to the sides while breathing in. Simultaneously sinking my centre lower than yours. This starts the process of an ascending wave of force moving up my body that I direct into your body at an upward angle (let's say 55 degrees). Now phase one is complete I have the situation where your body has only been lifted just enough to cause a slight loss of connection to the ground and therefore also loss of balance (although not grossley I might add). There also exists the situation that by keeping you suspended and extending my skeletal frame you are beginning to travel away from me. The amount of pressure I have used at this point to raise you has been significantly less than that necessary to simply push you back as I have not needed to overcome your forward resistance, but instead only enough to "severe" your connection to the ground, and therefore compromise your stability. Not exactly an act of causing you gross imbalance but enough that the combined force of my connection with the floor and your body, and gravity result in you traveling backward.

We now move into the second phase. As you continue to move backward I carry out my job which is to maintain just enough pressure that the upward and forward direction of my force into your body is not broken. This prevents you from becoming grounded and keeps you on your backward path. Please note that I am not attempting to increase the pressure against your body in order to "push" you further or faster.

Maintaining the correct amount of pressure against your body as you move backwards requires that I keep up with your rate of excellaration, but at the same time do not add any more pressure or force than is necessary. This means that I am in effect only using "four ounces of pressure to repel a thousand pounds". The excellaration is performed in harmony with you "falling" backward and so is a (relatively) slow amount of force released along the process of your moving away. The greatest amount of force used was in phase 1 to lift your body enough that you began to fall backward.

Now Chris, you are correct that this is not quite the featherlight touch that is the stuff of dreams, but it is significantly less than that required under less refined methods of "pushing" someone backward. With practice and sensitivity one can make this method very light.
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Walk the Torque on Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:27 am

Now to the main topic of the strike and the minimum amount of pressure necessary to cause pain/damage.

It may be that as you say Chris there is a need to excerpt a lot of surface pressure in order to transfer the required amount of momentum to carry out the job. I am though keeping my mind open on the method of inflicting the pain. It could be the result of a whipping type strike that stings the nerve endings on the surface of the skin. Or maybe the momentum is funneled through a single finger in order to compress the force into a smaller impact surface. I don't know and it is late.

I will continue to kick this one around though as it has peaked my curiosity.

Ta ta for now.

Conn
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Re: The lightest touch

Postby Wanderingdragon on Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:04 pm

Torque, I think you are talking about the magical, mystical Qi, that is so not understood, the energy that most say does not exist. As I have stated, it is not so much about the touch as much as it is about the gathering of energy and the proper alignments necessary for gathering and releasing such a force. Much like Chris says though, it may only feel like a light touch due to relaxed effort in using the proper alignments when transferring/ releasing such force, yet in my mind and I think more to your point, at higher levels of understanding there is the possibility of controlling such force to the point of actually knowing how cast it. I have to be careful here though, because I have gotten dangerously close to describing ling kong Jin, which I have yet to see believably demonstrated, though I have been witness to inch power under such control as to send a 200# heavy bag flying as well as seeing the same force sent into the same bag causing it to fold rather than fly at the point of impact
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